...

As I see the door, have one final look,
I check to see if anything remains
Not that I care if I forget a book
But obviously my duty is to look
So one final look it is...

As agreed, the every room is bare
goal achieved with time to spare
I flick all the switches for lights
reassured by each little 'click'
What else is left now?

The wheels are already in motion
For me to never return again
yet still a slim chance remains
with much effort,
I can this place regain

I briefly contemplate doing so
yet the primal reason still stays
For even if I did decide to remain
Living here wouldn't be the same

Nothing remains for me here...

Words

I pour these words on ink and paper
words I will not postpone for later
from my heart and soul combined
rarely beautiful, sometimes refined
dare I claim credit for their design
when even my talent is not mine?
Yet even still, I continue to write
and they dance between shadow and light
for in expression, in releasing these words
I am content, even if they be not heard
and from these utterings of questionable worth
maybe a gem or two will be unearthed

In the silence remains only my words and me
As I give them shape, and set them free.

Caffeine Headaches

Today is the first day in a looong time I've gone without caffeine based drinks, until about 20 minutes ago. The result, for those who have caffeine more than once a day, is these dull, throbbing headaches that won't relent until you have another cup of tea, or coffee, or whatever. I did have another, but only because someone had made me a cup of tea before I had a chance to tell them I didn't want one. Weirdly, now that I've had it so late in the day, I don't feel any of the benefits one is supposed to. Ahh well.

I recall the last time I experienced one was well over 18 months ago, when, in the name of good health, I cut out a large number of undesirables from my diet. Caffeine was the hardest — the headaches didn't stop for about a week, but after that it was pretty much plain sailing.

In the end, I went back to it, but this reminds me of that time. It's hard not to - the (short term) pain is exactly the same. Weird. I'm not about to cut caffeine out of my diet just yet, and its just a coincidence that I went most of today without it, but it's sparked all those thoughts. I'm going to focus my thoughts on other, more pressing stuff for now, but this post is a marker to lay down and look at later.

Next time, I want to do it right.

Stray thoughts

These come from being alone with my thoughts on Eid day (Eid Mubarak, btw). These may as well be fiction, but they come from me. Make of them what you will.


I

Redemption and Potential are my twin obsessions. Redemption is for when I look at all the wrong I've done, and now seek to put it right. I accept that some stuff is impossible to undo, and so some stuff I will never be able to put right, and in those cases I seek to do some other good to balance out the bad, and maybe tip the scales in my favour. I have a long way to go, and maybe one day redemption will stop being an obsession. Potential, on the other hand, is never going stop being an obsession, because I know that the capabilities of a human being are endless, and limited only by level of application and strength of will. If only then I could sort out my willpower issues, I know I'd be a better person. I have a series of interlinked thoughts on growth, and stagnation, and on a relationship between being dynamic and being static, somewhat similar to the growth post, which I hope to put in words sometime soon.


II

I've had a problem in the past, although I'm free of it now (mostly). The problem is self-worth, and related issues, which in its worst form manifests as self-hate. It's hard to explain the feelings of utter worthlessness that I sometimes felt at certain points in my life, though I'm sure some of the poetry I wrote at various times capture an element of it (Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D). Being well regarded by others when you don't regard yourself very highly leads to hypocrisy issues, which make the problem worse. Anyway, I am almost clear from it, in that whilst I'm not out of the dark yet, I can see the way out, and can see myself actually getting clear. In accordance with the growth post, I was going to write a huge post on this, but I can't post it. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in the future, inshaAllah. I also wouldn't be here writing this without the help of 5 very special people, to whom I owe a lot of thanks.


III

My life is not going the way I planned it. I don't know what happened, but I'm not upset about this either. I'm quite sure my initial plans were wrong, and I've been saved from something by not going on the path I originally intended. The only problem is that I still don't know what I want to do/be. All I know is that I want to do/be good, whatever that means. Applying for random jobs for graduates is all very good, but my heart isn't really into it, and I wonder if that shows. I know I'll have no trouble fitting in and being happy anywhere, but maybe that's both a gift and a curse. The only problem with remaining where I am is the risk of stagnation, of being stuck here in perpetuity, which is something I really don't want. Otherwise, I'm content where I am.


IV

Ever since I wrote the football poem, I've not been as into football as I usually am. I still love my team, and I love the aesthetic and technical element of the game as much as I always have, but something's changed. I've had these thoughts and feelings fully formed for at least 4 years, and maybe in giving expression to them, I've set myself free from carrying them? I don't know. I sense the same has happened with the trifecta of tech posts I made (1, 2, 3), so maybe in writing thoughts down you get some release from them. If so, maybe I'll write more on the fluff that fills this life and distracts me from the hereafter, if only to finally be rid of it.


V

I talk way too much. I needed a wake up call a few days ago, and examined how much I speak, and where. I don't know what's happened, but from being really introverted in my youth, I'm probably the most talkative out of anyone I know. Which is not bad, if you have something worth saying, but in my case it's mostly forgettable fluff. I think I may need to take a vow of silence, or some such. I came across this book yesterday, which has been lying dormant in my web bookmarks, and devoured as much as was on there, which has guided this particular set of thoughts.

The Top Ten Apps

(Again, skip to avoid, this time 1500 (!!) words on gadgeteering)

As promised, the third of the trifecta, and hopefully the last for a while, as I think the technolust should be out of my system with this peice.

If you examine the iPhone, you'll see it only has 5 buttons, and two ports. That is all. It's almost as if Apple decided to make a phone with the fewest possible number of buttons and ports, and succeeded. The ports are simple - one for headphone/ mic, and the other for charging/ docking/ data transfer. The buttons have set functions, like so:

- Volume Up
- Volume Down
- Silence on / off
- Sleep / Wake / On / Off
- Home / Wake / Accessibility / Multitasking (depending on context/ number of taps. An easter egg: if you double tap the home button whilst the iPhone is showing the lock screen, you get audio controls pop up on the screen)

The Home button is like the master button - no matter what you're doing, one press, and you're home. And basically, that's how it's designed to be. Don't touch the physical buttons, unless you really have to, and focus on the screen. And the idea behind the touchscreen now makes a lot of sense. All the other "buttons" show up on the screen, as and when you need them, depending on context. Need to make a call? You get a nice touchscreen numberpad. Need to type something? A full QWERTY keyboard is summoned. And, because it's just dots on a screen, and therefore not fixed to physical keys, you can change keyboards at the press of another button. Or change the orientation from portrait to landscape and watch the keyboard follow suit. Apple did well in setting out guidelines for app user interfaces for developers, and in picking a capacitive touchscreen instead of a resistive touchscreen, which means that the crucial element - responsivity of the touchscreen - is perfect.

It's too easy to just nab all the free apps, just because they're free, and also too easy to nab the non-free ones, as the majority are only just 59p. So, with the non-free ones, I limit myself by making sure I buy iTunes vouchers instead, which then limits me to the value of the vouchers I bought, and no more. That way, any impulse buying is quickly brought under control. And the non-free ones I limit myself by extensively researching the functions of the app, asking whether I really need it, and reading the reviews. I'm happy with what I have, so maybe I'll use the remaining store credit I have to rent a movie, or maybe buy some popular game apps. Maybe.

Anyway, I really don't have that many apps, although what you and I call "that many" is dependent on definition (for the record, at the time or writing, I have 79, although 18 of these are the default apps and cannot be deleted).


App #1: Safari

Easily the most used app on here - and no need to explain why.


App #2: Mail.

Integrates really well with GMail, not so well with hotmail. I dunno if Apple or Microsoft are the ones being obtuse about this. Probably both. So I only use it for my gmail account, and leave the hotmail one for Safari, or for when I'm on the laptop. It fetches any mail I have every 15 mins, or when I tell it to, and integrates with the contacts side of your phone extremely well


App #3: eBuddy.

Instant messaging on the go. I have people on GTalk, and people on msn, and this app unifies both accounts for me, and lets me chat to them (yes, that really is my auto-away message, but only on my phone). If you're on a mac, btw, get Adium. It's like eBuddy, only much, much better. If Adium was available for iPhone, i'd get it without hesitation, and wouldn't mind paying for it either.


App #4: Game Center

A relatively new entry, but I love it. It brings a social element to playing games, like the live services of xbox and PS3, but perfect for casual, as opposed to hardcore gaming. You match your high scores against your friends, play against them, and collect achievements. You can add friends through their nick or email, see what games they have, and a nice link takes you to the app store. By creating a social network for gaming, Apple are going to sell tons more games - the "Dude! You have GOT to get this game" from friend to friend will be more than sufficient marketing. I'm happy with the level of interaction - no chatting by default, focus on games only, to reveal my nick here (although some games allow chatting in and of themselves). Anyway, my game centre nick is "darksabre" (yes, I know, but kamehameha was taken).


App #5: VLC

If you don't have VLC on your computer right now, then shame on you. VLC is probably the best example of what open source code can do, and I use it a lot on my mac to play all sorts of media files - between VLC and QuickTime I never have to touch RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. And that's exactly what it does on the iPhone as well. Normally, on the iPhone, if a movie ends in .mp4, or .mov, or .m4v, then it can be played. Anything else has to be converted to one of those three before it can be played (it also has to be encoded using mpeg-4 h.264, but you didn't really want to know that). No longer with VLC - it will play just about anything, and although the loading process is somewhat cumbersome, it's worth it.


App #6: Things

If you take just one thing away from David Allen's excellent productivity book Getting Things Done, take away the idea of projects being no more than simply a list of to-dos, given a context and a final goal, and sometimes requiring a sequential order. There is more to that book, but you'll have to read it to get more. Apps that try to implement this system are called GTD apps, and of these, the pick of the bunch is either Things or Omnifocus, and of these, I like the interface of Things more, although I admit I've only seen screenshots of Omnifocus. These apps are better suited to the bigger screen of the iPad, but that doesn't make their iPhone versions any less useful. There is a lot of potential good to be used in this app, and if I used it properly, there is be no doubt in my mind that my productivity would skyrocket.


App #7: Account Tracker

How many personal finance apps are there on the App Store? Tons. But this is the one you should get, and you can trial it's free version before taking the plunge. This is a data collecting app, so it becomes more useful the more you use it. It's powerful as well, and has a lot of features, most of which show you exactly how you spend your money. Multiple accounts are supported. I use it to record future payments being taken out, so that I always know what I have. But, again, it's utility depends on how much you use it, so use wisely. And often.


App #8: Downloads

Safari is awesome. But what it doesn't do is downloads. So, if you run into any file you want to download, you're stuck. Admittedly, the lack of a filesystem as such on the iOS devices makes placing a download folder a little troublesome, but still... Anyway, - enter Downloads, which does. You surf the web, you find the file you want to download, and you download it. Videos from m.youtube.com are especially easy. And it is too easy to send it over wifi to another computer, or send via USB cable when connected to a computer.


App #9: iBooks

I've written about iBooks for the iPad before, but the iPhone app is pretty polished in itself. Again, for me, the main draw is the huge amount of quality out-of-copyright eBooks available, although the free books chart is gradually being taken over by people releasing their first book free, to induce people to pay for the next one, most of which are trashy romance novels (not that I've read any, lol). Still, hundreds of books free, especially my beloved Walden. What I would say is that the reading experience is a lot less ideal than on an iPad, especially because of the small screen, but that hasn't stopped me from finishing two books.


App #10: Notes

I don't really use this as much as I can, but I've always been happy I have this app whenever the occasion arises that I quickly need to jot something down. Like that dua. Or my weekly shifts. And sometimes, I've even written poetry there as well. Yes, there are other apps that duplicate this function, and probably do it better, but I'm happy with this. And yes, the Marker Felt font is annoying, but Chalkboard and Helvetica are coming with the 4.2 update, so that will be resolved soon.

Interestingly, the top four are all used to connect me to the outside world. Others that came close:

Dropbox
Wikipanion
IMDb
Flickr
Amazon

They're awesome, but relatively new, so I haven't used them as much as the others. Also to watch out for, are games that play on the iPad, which will then use the iPhone as a controller. I know of a few that are developing this capability, whilst also seeking to connect to a TV, so in the future, you'll be playing a game on your TV, and using your iPhone/iPod touch as a controller. That's going to be pure awesomeness, when it comes.

--------

Done.

Organising Apps

[Skip if you don't like 600+ words of someone going on and on about every little detail on their fave gadget]

I think, when everyone gets a new phone/computer/digital device, they set about customising it so that it reflects their personality. I've done this twice, once when I got my Macbook, and once with the iPhone, and I kinda was involved when my brother did it for his iPad. What you get is an initial frenzy of modifying/tweaking settings, picking the background, installing programs, etc. Then it cools down as you settle into using the item, and you only then make changes and add programs on an ad-hoc basis. And I'm there now with the iPhone - everything is pretty much settled, and I won't be adding any apps for a while now, except a few popular game ones. But, I can't have my computer disorganised, and I can't have my phone disorganised, so I've settled on an ordering system which I'm now happy with. (Real life, by the way, is different. I can deal with varying states of neatness, depending on context)

To begin: The lock screen: (click for full image)


I picked coloursplash as my background. It's a beautiful piece of digital art, and the resolution of the iPhone 4 shows it perfectly. It's one to take your breath away. As for the home screen, I decided to pay homage to Apple by selecting a small area of the default background that came with Mac OS 10.3. Do a google image search for "Panther Aqua". It's a nice, calming blue, and stays in the background, allowing you to focus on the apps themselves. I decided not to go for Islamic wallpapers, like I have on my computer, because I'm kinda uncomfortable with touching them, as such.

The Main Home Screen:


The Dock has the most important apps, and the most central to the phone's usage. We have the phone app, and the messages app, and Safari (web browsing) and the App store. These four make up the core of the phone's usefulness, and I want to be able to access them from any screen, which is why they are in the dock.

Quirk #1: I only ever fill up three lines on any screen with apps, leaving the fourth free for swiping across screens. I don't actually tell anyone this, but people instinctively touch the empty space when swiping across, so I know it works.

Quirk #2: I keep my apps/ folders in complementary pairs where I can. You'll see it across the all the screens. The only place I admit where this is not true is the first four on this screen, the last four on the last app screen, and Settings/ Youtube, where I couldn't find anything else to pair either with.

I keep mainly Apple-made apps on this screen, and the first four take priority over the rest. Then, it's quite easy to see the links for the complementary pairs:
Camera/ Photo,
iTunes/ iPod,
Utilities I/ Utilities II. Utilities I has stuff like Stocks, Maps, Voice Recorder, Game Centre, etc. Utilities II has meh-ish apps that I use on occasion, like ATM Hunter.

Screen II:


This one has the best of the rest. I probably use the apps here the most, after the ones in the dock.

Things/ Routines (Productivity)
Skype/ eBuddy (communication)
Accounts/ Natwest (finance)
iBooks/ Flickr (literature/photography)
Downloads/ Dropbox (downloading/file storage)
Games I/ Games II (as if I need to explain this one)

Screen III:


This one has a second tier of apps, which I use on occasion, but not as much as the others

Argos/ Amazon (shopping)
VLC/ iMovie (watching video/ editing video)
Remote/ Mobile Mouse (controlling my laptop from my phone. This is too cool)
Movies/ IMDb (cinema)
Lighsaber /Crazy Shodo / LiveScore / FreeAppADay (the aforementioned four apps that I can't find pairings for)

Screen IV:

This is for web apps/ web bookmarks.

DF/ Apple insider (tech news)
Glyphboard / OpenAppMarket (neatish apps that I rarely use)
BBC iPlayer/ TVCatchup (Web video)

And there you have it. There is one more screen, but that's used by my brother to collect apps in anticipation for when he gets his iPhone.

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Next, top 10 apps by usage.